Ndoma-Egba blames PDP govs for party’s polls loss

SENATE Majority Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN) yesterday laid the blame of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) massive electoral defeat in the just-concluded general elections at the doorstep of its governors.

However, Senate President David Mark has told Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) faithful to put the failures of the last elections behind them and be prepared to build a strong and united party ready to play a credible opposition.

Ndoma-Egba said the road to the March 28, April 11 electoral loss of the PDP started from the December 2014 primaries when the governors deliberately shut out unwanted candidates and imposed theirs on the party.

The resultant effect, he noted, was exodus from the PDP without any corresponding influx.

Ndoma-Egba, who stated this in an interview with journalists in Abuja, explained that politicians “defect because their former party squeezed them out, or in the case of the PDP recently, that they did not fit within the governors’ calculations. In my view, since every politics is local, each case should be treated on its merit.

He continued: “Unbridled defection has the capacity of not only overheating the polity and upsetting the entire political configuration but destabilizing the polity.

While the law has clearly settled the circumstances under which a person elected on the platform of a political party can switch parties, nothing restricts those who are not in the legislature from switching parties.

The phenomenon will endure for as long as ownership of political parties is not with its members but with, as in the case of the PDP with governors.

Governors (especially of the PDP) have become so overbearing that it is only their wishes that rule.  The party (at the national level) suborns its constitution, guidelines and even court orders to please the whims and fancies of governors who appropriate the will of members and impose theirs in its stead.

At a meeting with all PDP Senators – elect and Members-elect of the House of Representatives in Abuja at the weekend, Mark said: “We must accept the ups and downs as an opposition party . That is what the PDP is now. We must remain a united family and face the reality “Mark however, noted that the not- too impressive showing of the PDP in the last elections might in the long term be a blessing to the party and the nation , “ because we are going back to the drawing board to do a critical review and fashion out a blue print that would get us out of the woods for good.

“The role of opposition is strange to us but it is not a death sentence. We should be ready for the challenges.

“ We are prepared to play a credible opposition. I believe the nation and indeed Nigerians would be the best for it.”

Senator Mark however bemoaned the bickering within and among party faithful who were trading blames over the poor showing at the polls, saying “ there is no need weeping over lost opportunities or mistakes of yesterday. The failure of yesterday should be our lesson for a better today and a triumphant future” .